


Performance Issues

by sparklyslug



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Courtship, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Daemons, Drabbles, Fem!Tony, Ficlet, FrostIron - Freeform, Genderswap, His Dark Materials AU, IronFrost - Freeform, Jotun Loki, Jotunheim, King Loki, Lady Loki, M/M, Mr and Mrs Smith, Norwegian Mythology & Folklore, Rule 63, Wooing, concubine tony, frozen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2017-12-08 00:31:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 13,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklyslug/pseuds/sparklyslug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>frostiron drabbles and ficlets, mostly in response to prompts via tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Zip Me (1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt from therestlessdead: one character dressing another

“I don’t need your help,” Loki says quietly. “And if you think I’ll let you lecture me aga—”

“God, you never shut up,” Tony says, voice tight. But his hands are over Loki’s, sliding up his bare forearms. And he’s stepped in close, close enough for Loki to trace every freckle that’s scattered over his collarbone. 

“That’s the idea,” Loki says. He looks down at Tony’s hands sliding around to cup his elbows, stopping at the line of fabric where he’s rolled up his shirtsleeves. “How else could everything happen as it must?”

“It doesn’t  _have_ to,” Tony says. “I’ve read the fucking story,  _you’ve_ read the fucking story, just because you think you’re locked into some bullshit cycle doesn’t mean you have to go to that party and follow your script like a good little—”

“You,” Loki says, gritting his teeth against the hard edge of temper that’s threatening to lash out. “Know. Nothing.”

“I know plenty,” Tony says stubbornly. “I know that if you don’t do this, if you just… come to a movie, or fucking… watch the game, then no one takes a goddamned awl and hank of leather and—”

“You think it’s so easy? You think I haven’t been tempted? You think I haven’t wished that I could— No,” he shakes his head. He steps back from Tony a little. “No, this is… this is all that’s left to me, now.”

“I’ll blow it to pieces,” Tony says. “I’ll do whatever I have to, to help—”

“There’s  _nothing_  you can do to help,” Loki says, hands coming up to grip Tony by the shoulders. “ _Nothing_ _,_ do you understand?” 

Tony shakes him off, and turns away, breathing hard. Loki lets him go, and walks over to the table where his garb for the evening is already laid out. Planned beforehand, unalterable, as all of this is. All of it, laid out before him. No surprises, no change. Just the dull thud of the wheel, grinding him under it. 

As Loki reaches for his tunic, he’s surprised by Tony’s hand closing over his. He looks down into Tony’s face, but all he can read there is grim resolution. 

“Let me,” Tony says. “At least I— Let me do this.”

Not quite sure what he means, Loki still nods, and steps back. Tony heaves a great sigh. Then picks up the tunic, and guides it over Loki’s head, pushing at Loki’s arms ungently when he wants them to move. His belt is next, and Tony winds his arms around Loki’s waist as he moves, drawing close to Loki’s chest. 

Loki allows himself the indulgence of breathing in, of leaning forward a little into the touch. But he does not close his eyes. He keeps his eyes on Tony’s face, as Tony moves methodically through every detail of Loki’s wardrobe. Tying laces, adjusting angles, hands skimming over Loki’s chest and arms and thighs as he makes Loki ready.

Loki is dressed for a party, dressed for a casual night with friends. But he feels as though Tony is sliding sheets of armor over him. Armor made stronger for the human’s touch over it. 

Loki’s helmet is the final touch, and there Tony hesitates for the first time. He holds it in his two hands, face unreadable as he examines the golden horns. 

Loki takes him by the jaw, and gently turns his face up. 

“My comfort,” Loki says slowly. “Is that all of this has happened before. And will happen again.”

“All of it?” Tony says.

“Some on its own,” Loki says, “some I will  _make_  happen. Do you doubt my resolve, Stark?”

Tony’s mouth twitches. But before he can answer Loki seals it with his own, taking and taking and taking from Tony’s mouth. Until he feels the tug of what he must do, even as all his body is shrieking at him that was he  _must_ do is never, never move from this spot, from this man again. 


	2. Sandwiches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from clareithromycin: loki/tony, and sandwiches

“This roast beef is outrageous, it’s unbelievable, it’s incredible,” Tony says from his perch on the counter, where Loki has repeatedly tried to get him not to sit when there are customers in the deli.

“Glad you like it,” Loki says shortly, trying not to smile as he bends over the dish of egg salad. 

“I didn’t say I liked it, I said it was incredible, i.e. it cannot be credited,” Tony says, leaning over the counter to try and press some of the meat in question past Loki’s lips. 

“Don’t you have a company to run or something?” Loki asks, batting his hand away. “Weren’t those sandwiches for a board meeting that started _two hours_ ago?” 

“Oh,” Tony says. “Huh.”


	3. Zip Me (2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from cyrallia, one character dressing another.

“No you fucking— What the hell kind of knot is that?”

“Barton sent me video links. Hold still.”

“Sent you links? How? What, do you have an e-mail address now? Facebook? Stop the presses, the liesmith’s gone native.”

The next jerk at his necktie doesn’t seem necessary to the ridiculously elaborate knot that Loki is tying with it. 

“There,” Loki says, stepping back. Tony looks down, and is temporarily blinded by the sartorial majesty that’s sprouted at his collar. 

“Huh,” Tony says. 

“As Barton has told me, the internet doesn’t lie,” Loki says soberly. Which is how Tony knows he’s full of shit. 

Tony turns to look at his reflection in the mirror. “Not bad,” he admits, “not bad at all. But hey, I’m all decked out, and you’re barely dressed. Though you were going to be my date tonight? Just to see Fury’s eye really drop right out of his skull.”

There’s a rustle behind him, and when Loki speaks again, it’s with a voice that is slightly surprising, but still one that Tony knows well enough for it to send shivers running up his spine. Loki’s only appeared before him as a woman a handful of times. But yeah, they’re never times that Tony is ever, ever going to forget. 

“I’ve never much cared for tuxedos,” Loki says, as Tony turns around. And smiles, her lips blood red and shining, as Tony’s jaw drops. “Help me into something slightly more… alluring?”

Tony would say that she looks plenty alluring now. ‘Alluring’ is one word of many he could use for the flash of her green eyes, the cascade of inky black hair falling to her waist, the many chains of gold wrapped around her neck and wrists that are also the only thing she’s wearing. There are plenty of words for all that creamy skin, those incredible, jaw-dropping curves. 

Tony’s fucked if he can think of a single word, other than  _wow_. 

“Or,” Loki says, raising her eyebrows at him. “We could perhaps be, just a little late for Fury’s little tea party.”

“Fucking  _yes,”_ Tony says, yanking at his tie and undoing Loki’s work as he crosses the room over to her


	4. Marry Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from clareithromycin: a proposal/marriage

It feels mostly the same, whether they’re fighting or fucking. 

Well, fighting generally involves more spectators. And Tony’s encased fully in his armor, hiding the expanse of fragile skin and muscle that Loki has just begun to consider familiar (hiding it well, too— somehow Tony’s weaved protection against Loki’s magics into the metal, doubtless off of scans taken while Loki was otherwise occupied. Loki’s delighted by the duplicity). 

But the way Tony laughs is the same. Loki’s magic sparks in his fingertips and up his spine, as heady a feeling when he uses it to bring the city’s statues to life as it is when he uses it to pin Tony to the wall and pull those hoarse cries out of him without laying a finger on him.

And the struggle is the same: coming together in a great clash, vying for the upper hand, always trying to turn it around on the other. Familiarity, in fighting and in fucking, has just made the struggle sweeter. Better now, that they are beginning to know the other’s weaknesses, and how to compensate for the other’s strengths. 

“Living statues?” Tony shouts from the foot of the library’s steps, where he and the Captain are matched in battle against some mounted human hero from Earth’s past. “Really?  _Really?_  This is a little Doctor Who monster-of-the-week for you, don’t you think?”

Loki smiles, idly scratching the head of the great stone lion purring at his feet, and says nothing. 

“I would’ve gone for  _Pygmalian_ ,” the Captain grunts, taking a hit from the great stone sword but standing his ground. 

“Well yes, you’re just that much classier than the rest of us, Cap,” Tony says, and fires a shot from something mounted on his shoulders that blasts the head from the statue’s body. 

The blast flings Tony up in the air, but he stabilizes himself quickly, before flashing back down to where Loki sits, leaving the Soldier to do battle with the now-headless statue. Loki pushes himself to his feet to meet him, a smile spreading over his face. 

“Missed me?” Tony says, an answering smile there in his voice even if Loki can’t see it. 

“Dreadfully sorry,” Loki says, lashing out with his great spear at Tony’s flank. “Have we met?”

Tony rolls in midair and laughs, then launches himself bodily at Loki, tackling him to the ground. Loki grunts in surprise but rolls with it, pushing up just  _there_  and sending Tony spinning out over the steps, where he lands with a scream of metal meeting stone. 

“Wow, sorry,” Tony says, pushing himself up to his feet and turning on Loki again. “Got you confused with a guy who was screaming my name a few nights ago.” He pushes off, firing a blast of blue light from his palms at Loki as he goes. 

“I’m told I have one of those faces,” Loki says. And is forced to make an undignified scramble to the side as one blast is followed by another that would surely have knocked him from his feet. As he does he calls up four doubles, circled around Tony in an instant. 

Tony doesn’t even look at them. He taps the side of his visor. “These little tests just hurt me. You know I’ve only got eyes for you, dear.”

Loki’s smile wavers uncertainly, and Tony takes advantage of the momentary distraction to grab Loki by the arm again, perhaps in another attempt to bring him down. Loki twists out of the hold and pulls Tony tight to him, only just strong enough to grip the wrists of the suit in his hands and keep Tony there. His smile is rising again, because once Tony is pinned he is  _pinned_. 

“And what have you to say now,” Loki says. 

“Marry me?” Tony answers. 

Loki blinks, and his mouth drops open in surprise. It’s all the opening Tony needs. He kicks out at Loki’s knees, sending him tumbling to the ground. Loki snarls out a twisted word in the old speech, and the lions leap up, granite teeth bared. 

“I’ll take that as a ‘maybe,’” Tony says, and kneels next to Loki. He grabs Loki’s hand, bringing it up to the visor’s mouthpiece in a mockery of a courtly kiss. 

Then with a laugh he’s up again, attention turned to where the assassin is holding her own against an abstract artwork four times her size. 

Loki watches him go, still lying on the ground. “Maybe,” he says, and smiles. 


	5. Tell Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from cyrallia: a confession

“What is  _that?”_  Loki says, the first time he rips away the front panel of Tony’s armor and sees the glowing blue circle set into his flesh. 

“What the hell?” Tony says, when Doctor Strange finally manages to land a spell on Loki that turns his eyes red and shivers his skin into a night-sky shade. 

~

“A frat hazing ritual,” Tony says, just before Loki throws him off the top of the Chrysler Building. 

“An attempt to participate in your human Halloween rites,” Loki says, one eye swelling shut and smiling over at Tony in the Hulk’s tight grip.

“The latest club craze in accessories, all the kids got one nowadays,” Tony says, wiping the blood from his split lip and sailing in with another punch. 

“Cursed by a witch for ruining her for all other men after one night with me,” Loki says, hand pressed tight around the shaft of Barton’s arrow where it’s sticking out of his thigh. 

“If you rub it, it’ll grant you three wishes,” Tony says, leaning back against the wall, throat and chest exposed in a long lazy line. 

“A drunken full-body tattoo,” Loki says, eyes staying on Tony before he ripples into invisibility a split-second before Hill can get him with her taser. 

~

“None of your  _fucking_  business,” Tony moans, Loki’s hands pinning his wrists to the mattress. 

“ _Don’t_  ask me,” Loki growls, hands tight in Tony’s hair and eyes screwed tight against the sensation of Tony’s mouth all over him. 

~

They lie together, hands loose and legs entangled. Soft linen tunic rucked up over clear fair skin, a blue glow radiating out through the thin black undershirt. It’s raining outside. 

“My oldest friend and next best thing to a parent paid to have me killed,” Tony says. 

“I was born a frost giant, and was taken as a war trophy by the man I thought was my father,” Loki says. 

~

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It’s not important.”


	6. blood and leather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from vilefangirl: blood and leather

He’s still fighting even as he’s dragged before the throne, and Loki has to give him credit for that. He smiles. 

“Not badly done,” Loki says, leaning back in his throne and looking down at the man. He’s been knocked about a bit already, a thin slice over one eyebrow has crusted over already, dried blood smeared down that side of his face. His split lip is still bright, still vividly red, redder than the tongue that slips out to worry at it as Loki watches. “I commend you for coming this far.”

“Commend yourself, asshole,” the man grunts, grinning at Loki. “Nice hat.”

A flicker of annoyance at that, because for all that he  _looks_  like one of the royal servants— closely-fitted black leather breeches, leather vest— how has he lasted even  _this_ long in the palace, with a voice like that? 

“ _Milord,_ ” the man says, as though he can guess Loki’s thoughts. And there, yes— the accent is perfect. Loki’s lip curled. Not an idiot, then.

“You’re of Earth,” Loki says, leaning forward now in his chair. “One of my brother’s upstart retinue, is that right?” There’s no sound from the court at the mention of Thor. They know better. 

“Give the boy a cookie,” the man crows. “Though you know what they say, if you give a despot a cookie, then he’ll want a glass of milk. If you give him a glass of milk then—”

Loki is out of his chair in a flash, moving quicker than sight can track, and has the man up and by the throat in a moment. His taunts trail off into a gurgle, and his bound hands scrabble fruitlessly at Loki’s grip. 

“Think you that this is  _funny?_ ” Loki hisses, “Think you that your power and wit mean anything here, Stark?”

The man’s hands freeze, and those dark eyes lock on Loki’s. 

“Yes, I know you,” Loki grins. With his other hand he idly unties the laces of Stark’s vest. The vest slides open and Loki trails a finger from the man’s neck over his collarbone, down to where the circle of blue glows, bright and unmistakeable, from his chest. “The burden of ruling does keep me quite busy. But I always have time to look in on what Thor is up to.”

“S’touching,” Stark wheezes. He’s gone pale now, the blood on his lip looking all the more red for that. “What a thoughtful brother.”

“I’ve seen enough, to know that you are Thor’s comrade. His companion. A hero in your own right, though apparently still willing to sacrifice your life for his treason. For you  _are_  sacrificing your life, though perhaps he kept that truth from you.”

But Stark is— he is not afraid. Or, rather, he is. His body is rigid with tension, Loki can feel him trembling under his fingers, the hum of the contraption in his chest not enough to mask it. But he looks at Loki directly, eyes clear, and when he smiles there’s a blade behind it. 

“Yeah, well. Either that wallpaper goes, or I do,” he croaks, works his mouth, and spits in Loki’s face. It lands on Loki’s cheek, and the air in the throne room tightens as everyone in it seems to hold their breath. 

No one, least of all Tony, expects Loki to laugh. But he does, taking his hand from Stark’s chest to wipe at his face. 

“No, I think not,” Loki says thoughtfully, and Tony looks frightened again. “I perhaps know now what my brother sees in your company.”

Stark frowns in confusion, but only for a moment before Loki’s dragged his mouth to his in a punishing, brutal kiss. Tony hisses in pain and Loki bites at his bottom lip, relishing the taste of blood that blooms from Tony’s cut lip. 

Loki lets go of Stark abruply, and the man crumples. He looks up at Loki, eyes wide in disbelief, as he put a hand to his mouth. 

“Take him to my chambers,” Loki says. “I’d like to talk to this human further about my… wallpaper.”

The guards step forward, and Stark’s wheezy laughter is the only sound as he’s dragged out of Loki’s sight. 


	7. Enamor Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from tonyloki: wooing and courtship, with a genderswap twist

There’s a god on her couch. There’s a god on her couch, surrounded by gleaming chests of gold and silver, lush piles of brightly-colored furs, and what looks like a giant keg. There’s a god on her couch, his chin cupped in her palm, staring up at the ceiling and apparently mid-conversation with Tori’s A.I.

“Jarvis,” Tori says slowly, pausing in the act of stripping off the thin slippers she wears under the suit. “Please begin a scan for possible brain injury, as there is no possible way I'm not hallucinating this.”

« _scanning now»_

“I was just joking, you—”

“Ah good, you’re home,” Loki says, all business.

He looks impeccable, as always, and very much like he  _wasn’t_  out all afternoon trying to see how many skyscrapers he could ping Tori off of. Though he has changed: no longer in his battle armor and funny hat, he is instead in sort-looking forest green pants and a black tunic. The effect isn’t much less intimidating. “Your machine and I have been discussing the terms of your bride-price.”

Tori blinks. And turns, heading for the bar. 

“Your father is dead,” Loki says, trailing after her. “And I thought this machine would be a reasonable substitute.”

Tori freezes, hand stilling over the decanter of scotch. “You’re talking about bride-prices with JARVIS because you think he’s my  _father?_ ”

“A reasonable substitute,” Loki says, leaning against the countertop and smiling at Tori. 

« _scan completed. Brain systems are no more irregular than usual, Sir»_

“Yeah thanks a lot,  _Dad_ ,” Tori doesn't bother to correct the 'sir' thing (it's been years, and she can't seem to work out that glitch), she just scowls at Loki. “I  _made_  JARVIS, that doesn’t even make  _sense_.”

Loki shrugs. He reaches across the counter for two tumblers and the decanter, sliding it out of Tori’s hands easily. “It watches over you. It is your companion in that… clever suit of yours. The machine is of your blood, at any rate. It’s as good a substitute as any.”

“It’s really not,” Tori says. She watches as Loki smoothly pours scotch into the two tumblers, though his eyes never leave Tori’s face. “Okay, I saw Banner give you a pretty good belt around the head back there, but that’s like, a love tap to Thor so I didn’t think your marbles would really have been—”

“I’m tired of wrangling with your little band of heroes,” Loki says loftily. “If I’m not being shaken like a naughty kitten by your monster, I’m being pincusioned with arrows, or,”— he narrows his eyes at Tori— “dropped in the Hudson River.”

“Ah yes,” Tori sighs. “Good times.”

“So,” Loki hands her a tumbler of scotch, sliding his hand over Tori’s as Tori automatically accepts it. “I want to bring an end to this… charming fun.”

“By marrying me,” Tori says. “Sorry, by asking JARVIS if you could marry me.”

« _I’ve always known you would do well, Sir. I’m so proud.»_

“Jarvis, scrub any and all 19th century costume dramas from the entertainment database, I can see they’ve been a terrible corrupting influence on you,” Tori says. She throws back the scotch, and tries to suppress a wheeze. 

“It’s only logical,” Loki says, and yes, that is a definite purr bleeding into his voice. “And a fine way to ensure peace between our people.”

“One— it doesn’t really work that way anymore,” Tori says. “Two— Absolutely not. Three— You’re insane. Four— Absolutely not. Five— Thor’s already family, and that hasn’t stopped you from—”

“Thor is  _not_  family,” Loki says sharply. 

Tori sneers at him. It is, admittedly, something of a last-ditch effort at normalcy. “Right, right. But I don’t see how that would stop us from fighting you if, umm—” she watches warily as Loki comes around the counter, wishing,  _wishing_  that 5’5” didn’t feel so fucking tiny in front of this guy “—you start shit with us again.”

“Perhaps, if we were wed,” Loki reaches out, twining Tori’s ponytail between his fingers. “I wouldn’t ‘start shit’ anymore.”

Tori shakes her head irritably, freeing her hair from his hand. “Yeah, but why  _me?”_

“Your other teammates wouldn’t suit,” Loki says dismissively. “And,” he leans down a little, smiling wolfishly. “Past experience has taught me that you would… have few objections to such a connection.”

“Of for— that was  _one time—,”_ Tori pushes at his chest. Which doesn’t work out the way she planned it, as he grabs her hands and holds them there, against the soft black fabric and the warmth of his skin under it. 

“Yes,” Loki smiles, drawing closer. “I remember.”

He leans down and presses his lips too hers. So quickly that she doesn’t have time to process what he’s doing, but in a closed-mouth, chaste kiss that is  _completely_  at odds with what they’d done the last time this had happened (the  _only_ time this had happened). Tori finds that, despite the softness of the kiss, it’s somehow frozen her in place. She can feel his heart beat under her hands. 

Loki pulls back, at last. 

“And your morning-gift will be double this,” he says, all business. “To compensate for the gift of your virginity.”

“ _Get out_ ,” Tori howls, and grabs for the decanter of scotch. She doesn’t care if it was thousands of dollars, she’s gonna break it over that son-of-a-bitch’s head. But he’s gone by the time she turns back to him, just the echo of a laugh all that remains. 

_« you will end an old maid if you keep this behavior up, Sir»_

“Shut up, JARVIS.”


	8. prince loki of jotunheim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from vilefangirl: loki as crown prince of the frost giants

"We shall be in and out," Thor promises, almost effectively covering his nerves. "Just a small diplomatic meeting, it means nothing."  
  
"Right," Tony says, resisting the urge to tug at the goofy tunic Thor's servants had pressed on him. "That why we're all gussied up in our eye-searing best?"   
  
Thor scowls at him. "The situation with jotunheim is... tense. It would not do to give them any offense. And in the past my encounters with their crown prince have been... complicated."  
  
Tony raises an eyebrow. "Wow, this guy I've got to meet."  
  
"So you say now," Thor says glumly. "I am sure you shall feel differently once you see him."   
  
Thor's right, it turns out.   
  
"Wow, princess," tony says, when the prince— Loki, apparently, though no one calls him anything but 'highest star' or some other hippy-dippy shit like that— steps into Tony's space and practically looms down at him, the gold chains dangling down from his arcing horns almost brushing against Tony's face. "Buy me a drink first, please."  
  
The prince laughs, low and delighted, and brings up a blue (no, seriously, blue) hand that's criss-crossed with raised lines which catch disconcertingly over Tony's cheek as Loki gently brushes the back of his hand over Tony's face.   
  
"I doubt you could handle the drink I should offer you, human," the prince says. Tony doesn't step away from the touch, on principle, but regrets it when that hand— disconcertingly cool, cooler than it should be— settles on the exposed skin over his collarbone (seriousy, fuck whoever had made this stupid shirt with its stupid wide neck), the thumb pressing against the pulse point in Tony's neck. "Though I think I should like to see you try."  
  
"My lord Laufey," Thor says pointedly to the king of Jotunheim, who's lounging in his giant throne and grinning like he finds this whole thing hilarious. "What answer have you to our request? Will you open diplomatic channels between our realms?"  
  
"My answer, Odinson," Laufey says, his voice a rich rumble, "Is much as it ever was. Unless you feel differently, Loki?"  
  
Those red eyes are still fixed on Tony's face. Alien, so completely unlike anything Tony's seen. The smile though, is disconcertingly human. Predatory as it is, Tony recognizes it. And half-anticipates his answer when Loki says "I don't know, my lord. Perhaps the time has come to treat with Asgard."  
  
He looks at Thor, the hand on Tony's shoulder curling around into a possessive hold at the back of Tony's neck. "Leave this one as your representative."  
  
"He is not of Asgard," Thor splutters "how can he—"  
  
"All the more reason to choose him," Loki purrs. "We could trust his... impartiality. Refuse me this, Odinson," Loki says when Thor opens his mouth to argue, "and I'm afraid I will take it quite... personally."  
  
"He might not refuse, but I fucking do," Tony says, stepping back finally out of the frost giant's hold. "Thanks but no thanks, it's not you it's me, I'm not looking for anything serious right now, whatever. My answer is an emphatic no way."  
  
Loki's red eyes flash. "A pity," he says. "Then, we refuse. Again. But you are welcome to keep asking, Odinson. Especially if you bring this... interesting human with you. Perhaps he can change my mind. In time."  
  
Thor takes Tony firmly by the arm, sketches a quick bow at the throne, and practically drags Tony out of there without another word.  
  
Before they're out of the throne room, Tony hears the prince's voice in his ear, as loud and clear as if he was still standing right in front of him: "I look forward to our next meeting, Tony Stark."  
  
Tony jerks in Thor's hold, but the doors close behind them before he can turn back around and ask how the _hell_  Loki knew his name, when Thor had never mentioned it.   
  



	9. Concubine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from anon: Tony as Loki's concubine

It doesn’t matter how much gold Loki gives to Tony, how much he wraps around his wrists and neck and fingers, he mostly returns to his chambers to find it all lying in a puddle on the floor. 

“How many times must I tell you?” Loki asks, bending to scoop up a handful of the gleaming, priceless jewelry, so rare in this realm, which Tony has probably dented by throwing it aside as he has. 

“Mmm?” Tony is bent over a book in Loki’s bed, legs crossed. He doesn’t bother to get up when Loki comes in. He doesn’t even turn to face him. And when he  does look over at Loki, he doesn’t keep his eyes respectfully turned down, instead staring directly into Loki’s face. All of which is completely unsuitable, completely unacceptable for a concubine. Or would be, if anyone else knew of it. 

“I don’t just give you these things to amuse myself,” Loki says tartly, as it’s been a trying day and court politics have frayed his nerves beyond endurance. He drops the pile of gold onto the book Tony’s reading, where it lands with a crash. “They mark your status, here, human.”

Tony scowls up at him, and brushes the pile of gold off his book. “I hate when you fucking call me that,” he says, unacceptably pert,  _again_. “Besides, they’re heavy. And get in the way.”

Loki sighs, and lays a hand on Tony’s bare shoulder. Once there, he cannot deny himself the luxury of sliding his hand down along Tony’s back. The play of skin against skin, Loki’s own blue against the irresistibly warm paleness of Tony’s back, has never lost its allure for Loki. He could not resist touching Tony from the start, when the man was first offered to him as a show of good faith from Asgard, a token taken from their conquered far-off realm of Midgard. The rich pattern of blue lines laid up along Tony’s spine have only made this temptation worse. The tattoos serve a practical purpose, in keeping Tony from running away, or doing harm to the prince. But he finds himself tracing them again and again with his fingers, and often thinks it a pity that the mage’s work is accomplished in a pattern that doesn’t wind over Tony’s entire body. 

“I’ll call you what I like,” Loki says, reminding himself with an effort what they’re talking about. “You should remember your place.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Tony’s impatient tone is at odds with how he arcs up into Loki’s touch, though his eyes (white around hazel, so unlike the red, red, red that Loki is surrounded by always) have no apology in them at all. “Just awe me with your princely might or whatever.”

“When I take a wife, you’ll have to show me more respect,” Loki says. He doesn’t know where it comes from, doesn’t know why he says it. But Tony stills under his hand. 

Then he moves lightning fast, grabbing Loki’s arm and yanking him onto the bed, scrambling over him to straddle his hips before Loki has time to react. He’s landed on some of the gold and it hurts, but Loki doesn’t move out from under Tony, doesn’t look away from how his concubine grins down at him, sharp edges in that smile. 

Slowly now, Tony leans over and picks up a thick golden bangle, one of a set of two that was at first linked together by a thin golden chain, before Tony lost patience with it and severed it. The end still dangles from the bracelet, brushing against Loki’s chest as Tony raises Loki’s arm and slips the bangle onto his wrist. 

“ _When_  you take a wife,” Tony says, twisting the word mockingly. “You’ll have to make me.”


	10. prince loki of jotunheim (part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from anon: a sequel to chapter 8, with jotun prince Loki wooing Tony in earnest.

It storms, the first night after Tony gets back from Asgard. 

Not that he hears it, since wow no one mentioned how the jet lag from traveling in-between realms is a total bitch. He finally passes out after making it until 8 p.m. before he can’t fight off sleep anymore, and a little bit of rain isn’t going to wake him up. Neither is a little bit of thunder. 

What does wake him up is something in the next room falling to the floor with a crash. He has the presence of mind to slap on his Mark VII bracelets before he runs out, but not quite enough presence of mind to put on a shirt. Or anything other than the pink briefs he wore to bed (Pepper’s idea of a joke gift he wears just to spite her). 

He wasn’t awake enough to have formed any expectation of what was going on. But even if he was, there’s no way he would have expected  _this_. 

There’s a frost giant prince in his living room. Blue-skinned, horned, dripping with gold jewelry, wrapped in a tightly-fitting red leather vest and black trousers, crouched over the wreck of Tony’s TV. Loki. In his living room.  _In his living room_. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Tony asks. Or, yelps, kind of. 

 _< Sir, it appears we have an intruder.> _JARVIS says. Loki had looked up and turned a wide smile on Tony when he came in, but as the A.I. speaks his head whips around, looking for the source of the voice and scowling. 

“No fucking shit! What the hell is going on here?”

“Apologies,” Loki says smoothly, getting to his feet. “I thought perhaps your servant was hiding in that… device,” he waves a hand dismissively at the TV. “But he has eluded me.”

Tony stares at him. At the frost giant royalty. Standing. In his living room.

He looks bigger than he had in his father’s court, though Tony figures distantly that maybe it’s because there he was surrounded by much taller frost giants. There are no other frost giants here. Tony has high ceilings, and Loki still looks like he’s about a hundred feet tall. Even more so as he steps closer to Tony.

He’s been staring back at Tony too, but Tony had missed the way his look had turned steadily more…  _appreciative_  until just now.

“I did not mean to wake you,” Loki says. “But I’m honored that you would dress up so to see me. This suits you far more than those Asgardian rags.”

“Hey, pot, kettle,” Tony says, crossing his arms over his bare chest defensively. “I saw what passes for high fashion in your hometown. So, okay, now you’ve said hi, trashed my stuff, tried to assassinate my A.I., how about you get the fuck out of my apartment?”

Loki laughs, throaty and low. His  _eyes,_ god. Red, a vivid red that’s brighter than blood, or maybe just seems so when set against the blue of his skin. 

“You are a delight, Tony Stark,” he says. And steps closer. Tony steps back, and Loki holds up his hands placatingly. “Don’t be afraid,” he says. “I haven’t come here to harm you.”

That isn’t exactly what Tony’s afraid of, but he decides it’s better not to mention it. “What have you come here for, then?”

Loki’s grin widens. “To talk,” he says. All innocence, which Tony buys for not one fucking second. “That great blonde oaf dragged you from me before we could speak further.”

“I don’t know, I think that conversation had pretty much run its course,” Tony says. Still, he doesn’t step back this time when Loki steps forward again. And doesn’t move when the frost giant, slowly, reaches out to put his blue hand over Tony’s crossed arms. The chill is almost shocking. 

“My father was… intrigued by the idea of a human representing your kind’s interests on Jotunheim. And I have taken the liberty of visiting too your… SHIELD, is it?”

Tony stiffens. Loki smiles, and his hand curls over Tony’s crossed forearms so he can pull him a little closer. 

“They are… _very_ interested,” Loki breathes down into Tony’s face, “in the idea.”

“I told you no,” Tony says, voice as quiet as Loki’s. 

“And I told you we would meet again, Tony Stark,” Loki says. 

“I have a job.”

“And what if that job should require you to spend some time off-planet?” Loki’s other hand comes up to cup Tony’s face. Tony tries, unsuccessfully, to suppress a shudder. “We should have to spend much time together, then. Time enough, perhaps, for me to woo you in a proper fashion.”

“‘Woo’ me?” Tony laughs, but it sounds fairly breathless. “You’re fucking insane.”

“Doubtless you would think so,” Loki’s gaze travels downwards, over Tony’s arms and chest and the arc reactor, which is casting highlights in a brighter shade of blue over his skin. “But I look forward to proving you wrong.”

“Or right,” Tony says. Stubborn even as the hand on his face moves to cup the back of his head. 

“Or right,” Loki concedes. “Either way, I look forward to it,” and he bends down, pressing his lips against Tony’s. Chastely, gently, but it still sends a shock through Tony and he gasps against the frost giant’s slightly cool lips. 

Loki pulls back just as he does though, flushed as if Tony’s lips parting under his own are perhaps too much of a temptation. 

“Director Fury should be in touch,” Loki say. “I do wonder what he will have to say.” 

And with that, he’s gone. Tony only realizes later that he’s stolen one of the Mark VII bracelets, as some kind of souvenir. He can’t see this as anything but a bad sign.  


	11. prince loki of jotunheim (part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from tonyloki: "Persistent prince blue and exasperated Tony GO." (too good not to repeat verbatim)   
> sequel to chapters 8 and 10.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay at this point clearly I'm gonna have to just make this a separate fic of its own haha. So stay tuned, that's going to happen for sure.

Tony doesn’t even turn around when he hears the crash behind him.

“Is there  _any reason_  why you feel the need to constantly break my stuff?” He says instead.

“Apologies,” The crown prince of Jotunheim says from behind him. “But if you did not insist on owning so many impractical things, we would not have this problem.”

Tony turns, and scowls. “Okay, that,  _that_  is made of stainless steel, how the  _fuck_  did you manage to shatter it?”

“Sometimes my teleportation causes the air to rapidly cool, I have noticed before that metal can sometimes—”

“Oh my god,” Tony sinks his head into his hands. “I’ve been here for five seconds and this is already happening. How. How is this already happening?”

“If I could stay away from you, I would,” Loki says. 

Tony glares at him. 

“Alright,” Loki grins. “I wouldn’t.” He steps back onto Tony’s bed, and settles himself down onto it. For the inhospitable, nasty-looking palace of a people who tend to bunk down on a slab of rock, this room is admittedly pretty nice. Comfy bed, broad desk, well-stocked bookshelves admittedly full of titles in a language Tony can’t read. But there are plenty of oil lamps hanging from the ceiling, and even a window looking out over the icy landscape that, miraculously, still doesn’t let in any of the frigid air. Tony’s just in a t-shirt and jeans, and he’s perfectly comfortable. Well, comfortable temperature-wise. Not so comfortable with how this asshole is looking at him. He’s more used to the red eyes, the blue skin, the fucking  _horns_ , and that’s the most worrying thing of all— Loki, with all his strangeness, is becoming  _familiar_ to him. Fuck. 

“I’m pretty impressed you stayed away as long as you did,” Tony says. “Or was it just because Thor was escorting me?”

Loki sniffs disdainfully. “I avoid him when I can. And he’s so touchingly  _protective_  of you, I had no wish to see it.”

“What’s the story between you two, anyway?”

“Should you like to know?” Loki leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Curious about my past, Stark?”

“No,” Tony says firmly, and turns back to his unpacking. 

To his surprise, Loki says nothing. And continues to say nothing, as Tony pointedly transfers his socks to one drawer and his shirts to another, dropping his spare sneakers on the floor and “—okay,  _what?”_

Loki is lounging back on the bed again, smiling lazily at Tony. He’s not wearing as much gold, today. Only a few thick cuffs around his wrists and the base of his horns, one golden chain with a large pendant dangling from it. And a dull silver bracelet too which looks somewhat familiar, though Tony is pointedly  _not_ thinking about how.

“What do you mean?” Loki says. “I’m just keeping my new guest company. And enjoying the view,” he grins. “Do put a few more of your things in that bottom drawer, I’m sure there’s more room.”

“Whatever you think is going to happen here,” Tony says carefully, because he’s practiced this speech. Pepper helped, even. “Isn’t”

“I’ve made my intentions clear,” Loki says easily, pushing himself up off the bed and coming close to Tony. Tony knows by now how this tends to go, so he quickly circles around the bed to put it between them.

Loki doesn’t seem to mind, instead he turns and heads back towards the bed, getting back onto it so he’s kneeling on the mattress, but still not quite close enough to reach Tony. “But I have no expectations from you, Stark. I cannot predict you at all, I find. Why else do you think I could not keep from coming to you?”

Tony doesn’t move. He’s slightly stunned by how Loki looks kneeling on the bed, barefooted and without most of his jewelry, and  _fuck_ that’s not good. 

“I need to pack,” Tony says. “ _Unpack_. I mean.” And it doesn’t sound convincing at all. 

Loki looks at him, smiling. “Very well,” he says at last. But doesn’t move to get off the bed. instead, he reaches up, carefully sliding one of the thick golden cuffs from one of his horns. Tony watches the motion, fascinated. “Will you accept this token from me?”

“Awww, fuck off, do I look like some medieval chick in a funny—”

“A token of friendship, Stark,” Loki interrupts, offering the cuff. “Nothing more. It’s not uncommon, here. I swear.”

Tony hesitates. And steps forward, to take the cuff. No sooner has he touched it than Loki’s hand is around his wrist, pulling him forward until he half-falls, half-climbs up on the bed to kneel in front of Loki. Shit. 

“Allow me,” Loki says, his breath surprisingly warm as it fans across Tony’s face. He lifts Tony’s hand, and slides the cuff over Tony’s wrist. It’s a little big, as Loki’s horns look to be fairly wide around the base ( _don’t_ think about touching them,  _don’t_ think about holding on to them), but it stays on even as Loki drops his hand. 

And pulls Tony in for another kiss. Not as gentle, not as chaste, this time. Loki’s mouth opens under his, hungrily, impatiently, and his arm snakes around Tony waist to draw him in closer. Tony lets him. He lets him, arms still loose by his sides, until Loki’s tongue slips out to touch against his own, and then Tony comes to his senses. 

He lurches back, landing back on his ass on the mattress. He almost expects Loki to follow him down on to the bed, and for a moment, when Loki leans forward a little, it looks like he’s going to do just that. 

Then he freezes. And smiles. 

“Thank you,” he says, voice a little rougher and deeper than Tony’s heard it before. “For accepting my token.”

And he’s gone. Leaving Tony lying back on his bed, breathless, with only half his stuff unpacked and a broken toolkit all over his floor. 

For his first diplomatic assignment ever, this one isn’t off to a great start. 


	12. seduction via technology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from graceful-storyteller: "Do you think you can seduce me with technology? ...Alright maybe you can a bit."

He’s not sure when his uneasy alliance with Tony Stark and, by extension, the Avengers, began to include accepting invitations to Stark Tower at three in the morning. 

And yet, here he is. 

“Ha, knew you’d be up,” Tony says by way of greeting, standing on the landing pad in just sweatpants and bare feet. The effect of all that skin is diminished by the amount of grease that is smeared over most of it. 

“I only just returned from a trip to the furthermost moon of your sweet little universe, and haven’t adjusted to Earth rhythms yet,” Loki says, ignoring the hand that Tony puts out for him to shake.  “‘Jet lag,’ is I think what you would call it.”

“Yeah, right, showoff. You were just plotting in your lair, or something,” Tony says. “Come on, got something I need your help with.”

The inside of Stark’s apartment is even more of a mess than usual. Great arching metal structures are set up in each corner, branching out along the walls and curving up to meet in the center of the room. Metal discs are set, seemingly at random, all around the room. It reminds Loki, with a creeping uneasiness, of Heimdall’s former post at the end of the Bifrost. 

Tony lays his hands on him. Just an innocent gesture, guiding Loki to stand where there is a yellow smiley-face sloppily painted on top of the (undoubtedly expensive) hardwood floor. It isn’t much good, trying to get Tony to stop touching him. He’s tried most things: shying away from the touch, glaring, even a somewhat foolish attempt at reverse psychology by touching Tony back. Nothing had worked (especially not that last). 

He would stop if Loki asked him to. Loki knows that. But he’s stopped short of that, every time. 

“So Cap and I are getting pretty good at the shield-reflector use of energy thing,” Tony is saying, hand still on the small of Loki’s back as he points to one of the discs directly in front of them. “But yeah, fun as it is, doesn’t quite work all the time.”

“And what am I meant to do with…. all this?” Loki asks. He’s only wearing a thin linen shirt, and Tony’s palm is warm against his back. 

“Fire some of your magic whammy at that one, and, uh, don’t move,” Tony steps in closer to Loki’s back. “Go nuts, Smurfette.”

Loki looks at him blankly. But he does wave a hand, pulling his staff (new, carefully created, resembling in no way the one gifted him by the Chitauri) from a pocket dimension and aiming it at the disc. He hisses a word in a dead language that only he still knows, and a jet of pure blue energy gushes free from its tip at the disc. 

As soon as it hits, the effect is instantaneous. The circle rebounds the energy, not directly back at Loki but splintered off in three different directions, directly at other shields. These splinter in the in the same way, bouncing the energy into other shields, which split the energy and send it off elsewhere, an exponential increase in sparkling, crackling light whizzing around the pair of them. They are weaved, covered, and encompassed in pure light. 

And unhurt by it. Tony is pressed tightly against Loki’s back now, both feet within the smiley face. For safety, Loki is sure. Though Stark’s hands are fisted tightly now in the fabric of Loki’s shirt, and he can feel the vibration of him laughing against his skin. Loki doesn’t look at him though, he cannot look away from the spectacle unfolding around them. Even blinking feels like a loss, to give up the sight of this for so short a time. 

When it fades, it fades so slowly that Loki doesn’t even notice it at first. And it causes a pang, when the blue light slowly begins to dissipate. Loki doesn’t move, until the very last flash of energy is grounded in the floor. 

“Shit, I had no idea that would— So?” Tony asks. Still not moving from behind him. “What do you think?”

Loki hesitates. Then turns, slowly. Tony lets go of his shirt to allow him to move, but doesn’t step away from him. Loki looks down into his face, hiw own expressionless. 

“How do you imagine this will help you in combat?”

“Oh, uh,” Tony shrugs. “Set up the discs around the city. Lure bad guys into it like a trap. Not… I don’t know, it’ll work.”

“No, it won’t,” Loki says, unsmiling. 

“Hey—”

“And why did you need me? You could have provided the energy yourself. More effectively too, if it is your battle strategy which inspired you.”

Tony brightens, with the air of a child being asked a question he knows the answer to. “Adaptability, to make sure it works with all kinds of energy, you know, so maybe the whole team can—”

“Stark,” Loki says. “It is more beautiful than anything I have seen on this realm.”

Tony stops, mid-babble. And smiles. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” Loki’s face is still blank, unreadable. “Did you truly think you could seduce me with  _technology_?”

Tony grins. And raises his eyebrows. “Well. Yeah. Call it a secondary goal of this experiment. So, did it work?”

Loki blinks. Tony, grin widening, closes his hands over Loki’s hips. And leaves them there, no further pressure or invitation in them beyond the warmth of his palms and the proximity of his smile. 

To answer would be too embarrassing. Loki bends and catches Tony up in a kiss instead. Hands move from his hips to around his neck as he almost lifts Tony off his feet, Tony’s mouth opening eagerly, hungerly, and with a half-laugh against Loki’s own. 

And it feels like light. Like a room full of radiant, vivd light. 


	13. mr and mr smith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from anon: mr and mrs smith style au

Loki’s hand freezes over the monitor. 

“Backtrack,” he says, voice impressively calm. “Hold to 15:42.” The image warps and pauses. Yes, there, the armored operative pauses, back to the surveillance camera (the only one he neglected to blow up), and removes his helmet. Brown hair, dark, like any head all over the world. No way to identify him.

This was before Loki had arrived at the scene, before the idiot had botched the hit and exploded the site, and most of Loki’s gear. By the time Loki had got there he was helmeted again. And Loki had only got a quick look at him through the scopes before it had all gone to shit, no chance to get closer and properly introduce himself. A missed opportunity he had been planning to make up for. In spades. Until…

“Play at half-speed,” Loki says. The recording obeys. The operative puts his hands on his hips, and tilts his head to the left, right, left again, cracking his neck. There’s no audio, but Loki can imagine the sharp pops. 

Can imagine them perfectly, as he’s been waking up to that less-than-pleasant sound for the last nine years. 

“Tony?” Loki breathes.

Amora’s head comes up from her readout of the explosion. “What was that?”

“Nothing, sorry,” Loki says, clearing his throat. “Just… just remembered something I had to do before heading home tonight.”

~

Tony stands to the side of the front door and pushes it open carefully. Nothing explodes, so he pokes his head around the front door. 

“Hey honey,” he calls into the house, the modest two-story pseudo-colonial that he’s slowly grown to hate more and more over the years. “I’m home.”

“Perfect timing,” Loki walks into the foyer, relaxed and unruffled in the same slacks and button-down he left for work wearing in the morning. Perfect for a respectable insurance salesman. Not so perfect for a flying, magic-wielding assassin with wicked knife-throwing aim. Which is probably why it took a second for Tony to place his husband as the one wrapped in all that leather and stealth gear. 

But JARVIS’s scans don’t lie. Loki, apparently, does. 

“Dinner’s all done,” Loki smiles. It looks like the bland, barely-interested, barely-listening smile that he’s been greeting Tony with night after night. Or it would, except for the bright shine in those eyes. Flashing like they haven’t in years, though it was those eyes— sharp on him across a crowded hotel bar in a muggy village at the end of nowhere— that had made him so irresistible nine years ago. 

“Smells like Indian,” Tony says, cautiously bending to rest his briefcase on the floor next to the hall table. He doesn’t take his eyes off Tony. 

“Your favorite,” Loki agrees, hands sliding slowly into his pockets. 

“Oh yeah,” Tony says, and he smiles. “You spoil me, babe.”

Loki smiles back, and his tone has a seductive purr to it that  _wow_ , Tony hasn’t heard in longer than he likes to remember. “Darling, you have no idea.”

This is going to be fun. 


	14. arranged marriage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from anon: arranged marriage since birth

“Oh fuck,” Tony says when Loki appears in his workshop, and promptly falls off his stool. 

“Lovely to see you too,” Loki says smoothly. He hops up to sit on Tony’s work table, and makes no move to help him up. 

“You’re  _here,”_ Tony says eloquently, lying on the ground and staring up at Loki. “Why? Why are you here?”

“I need a reason to drop in and see my consort-to-be?” Loki says airly, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Yes, actually, since my birthday isn’t for another six months and I was hoping to live blessedly free of all…  _this_ —” he waves a hand at Loki. “—at least long enough to pretend that my quarter-life crises doesn’t include  _marriage to an alien_. And you’ve never come to Earth before.”

“You’ve never  _seen_  me on Earth before,” Loki corrects him. “Are you going to get up? Or do I have to come down there?”

It’s one of those statements Loki makes regularly, that could be a come on, and could be a threat, and Tony’s never sure which. More than anyone Tony’s ever met, Loki just  _unbalances_  him. With basically everyone else in his life, he knows what’s going on, how to spin them, how to get the most out of whatever they want from him. 

Well, not everyone, really. The arc reactor is an unfamiliar weight in his chest still, even after a few months. He rubs at it absently, and Loki leans forward at once. 

“Does it pain you?” He asks. Concerned, maybe. But not surprised. 

“Does it— That’s what—” Tony pushes himself up into a sitting position, and glares up at Loki. “Have you been spying on me?”

Loki doesn’t answer, but he might be smirking at Tony a little bit. The barely-there-smirk vanishes altogether as Tony goes on, his voice rising uncontrollably as he speaks.

“Because if you were watching all those months I was trapped in that—”

“There’s a difference between being able to spy,” Loki cuts him off, eyes suddenly across the workshop, “and being able to get involved.” His eyes cut back to Tony. “I have only recently been able to do more than just look between realms. I hadn’t yet learned the trick of transporting myself when you were caught. I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” Tony breathes. “Right.” He takes another deep breath. “Okay, so what’s this little visit for, then? Am I fired as space princesses due to being damaged goods?”

Loki nudges him in the shoulder with the toe of his boot. “You will be my consort, not a princess,” he says. “And you’re hardly damaged goods.”

Tony nods, and looks at his feet. He swallows heavily. 

“Shit,” he says, when he can look up. “And I was so close to being free of you for good.”

“Even if you weren’t marked for me by the fates, you’d have to do quite a bit to be ‘fired as space princess,’” Loki says. “You’ve met Thor. Even he hasn’t managed to be disowned yet.”

“That’s true; you guys don’t exactly set the bar high. Present company included,” Tony says. He gets to his feet finally. His ass is starting to hurt—this floor is  _not_  comfy— and leans a little into Loki’s space. “So, stop avoiding the question. What’s really going on here? Why the visit?”

Loki raises a hand, and catches some of the hair at the nape of Tony’s neck in between his fingers. Casual, as though he isn’t giving it much thought. And Tony doesn’t think about it either, until he remembers that actually, apart from courtly and formal handshakes, they’ve never touched. Not like this. 

It makes no sense that this gesture, that Loki’s hand at his neck, should feel so comfortable and natural. But it feels right. It feels like this is something they do every day. 

“Talking of damaged goods,” Loki says slowly. “What if I was… not myself?” 

“Oh yeah, that clears this whole mystery up totally,” Tony says, but gentles it with a hand on Loki’s knee. “How could you be ‘not yourself’?”

Loki doesn’t answer, apparently absorbed in how Tony’s hair feels. Tony sighs in frustration, and leans in a little closer. “Hey. You feeling philosophical, or did something happen?”

“‘What if’ implies a hypothetical,” Loki says sharply. “Pay attention. What if I was not myself and was not a prince? Hypothetically.”

Tony tries to get some hint of what’s going on in Loki’s head, but even his somewhat limited experience with Loki has taught him  _plenty_  about his practical library of blankly inscrutable faces.

“I don’t know, a lot of stuff, I guess,” Tony says. “Why are you asking me? I’m not like, tapped into the Asgardian court or anything.”

“It’s just that, were I not a prince, our contract would be broken,” Loki says. Airly, sort of like a monday-morning physics lecturer Tony used to sleep through. Pendantic, dry, detached. But Loki’s fingertips are resting over the base of Tony’s skull now, his thumb hovering just over Tony’s jaw. “You would be free. A tempting prospect for you, I’m sure.”

Huh. Well, ‘tempting’ isn’t quite the word. As long as he can remember, he’s know that he was Intended (capitalization very much merited) for another. He’s been visiting Asgard every year or so since he was five. Sure, he doesn’t think about it every day, or anything. Hasn’t stopped him from dating here and there, since all that’s fine as long as no one tries to put a ring on it (his  _finger,_ just to clarify). But even so, it’s just… part of him. He’s never known a world without Loki in it. 

“Well, duh,” Tony says, because he doesn’t need to tell Loki all of that. His hand tightens a little over Loki’s knee. “But isn’t the whole gig part of like some Norn shit? That’s not your family, that’s… fate. Or something.”

“Or something,” Loki says. There’s a crack in that unreadable mask, but Tony still can’t quite tell what it means. Just that whatever Loki’s feeling, it causes him to press his palm flat over Tony’s pulse, his hand warm against Tony’s neck. Tony draws in a breath, because  _wow_  he feels that all the way down to his toes. 

“You’re stuck with me, I guess,” Tony says. And smiles. “Hypothetically.”

“Hypothetically,” Loki repeats.

“There an echo in here?” Tony asks, and because hey, they  _are_  engaged, he leans in and kisses Loki. Loki’s sitting on his table, so he’s  _still_  taller, even though Tony’s standing, but not by much. He’s close, too close to resist. 

The hand on the back of his neck tightens, holding him fast in place, though Loki’s lips seem to be slower on the uptake—it takes a moment longer for them to relax against Tony’s, and to return the kiss. 

Tony breaks the kiss after a while, but only pulls back far enough to rest his forehead against Loki’s. 

“So what is this about, really?” He asks. Wow, this isn’t a conversation he’d expected to have, but yeah, he’s going to ask. “Getting cold feet?”

Loki laughs, and wraps his other arm around Tony’s waist. “You have no idea,” he says, but then he’s kissing Tony again. So yeah. That’s alright then. 


	15. Daemon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Golden Compass/Daemon au

Tony knows where to look for Loki, when he wakes up and there’s cold air seeping into his bones, cold air let in by the thick furs having been thrown back on the other side of the bed. 

"Outside?" Javeshar stretches her jaws wide, her sharp teeth gleaming in the light of banked but glowing coals in the fireplace. 

"Probably," Tony grunts. He shoves his feet into his boots, but rather than buckling and lacing himself back into all his gear he just hefts the furs up off the bed and wraps them around himself. If Loki doesn’t like it, he can stop fucking running off in the middle of the night. 

Jave follows, though Tony can’t see her so much as hear her claws clattering against the wood floors, her grey-brown fur vanishing completely into the dark around them. Together, they step outside under the cold arctic air. 

Tony makes the trip this far North regularly. Yeah, technically he’s sent where he’s needed, but seems like he’s needed up North fairly often. It’s the sort of place that doesn’t so much value its secrets as actively devours any that try and uncover them, but Tony’s been at the heart of enough of those secrets to feel, despite the cozy apartment in Camlun and sprawling family home outside Ebora, that this is home. 

"Helps that he’s here too, right?" Jave says, because she’s  _terrible_. 

As though Jave’s smartass remark was all that Tony needed to unpick some of the darkness before him, he at last can pick out Loki’s shape in. As always, Tony wonders how he could have missed him: outlined by the stars and the soft looping waves of the aurora, the cant of his head, the relaxed hang of his arms belied by the tension in his shoulders, it all adds up to a figure that’d mesmerized Tony from the first. 

(not that Tony had showed it well, since he had pretty much mortally offended him from the start. It had only taken three more trips North before he’d got Loki to thaw. A little, anyway.)

Jave bounds ahead, a dark shape sinking into snow almost as deep as she’s tall, but Loki only looks around when Tony draws level to him. 

"Couldn’t sleep," Loki says. He looks down at the furs Tony’s wrapped around himself, but lets one raised eyebrow communicate everything he feels about this particular indignity. 

"It’s fine," Tony says. Jave’s mostly vanished into the darkness now, but he hears a soft croak and guesses that she and Trauley have found each other. And feels it too, the soft bloom of happiness part hers, and part his. 

"She’s passing through?" Tony asks. 

Loki nods. 

"But not stopping to say hello."

Loki shakes his head. 

"Oh, good," Tony says, letting out a theatrically large breath. "I am definitely not ready for the whole meeting-the-parents thing. Way too soon for that."

That surprises a laugh out of Loki, and he edges closer to Tony, flipping up the edge of the fur (and ignoring Tony’s yelp as the cold hits him like a slap) to slide in under it with Tony. Loki is cold, naturally, but not as cold as he should be, outside in probably too-little clothing (he’s wearing his own anorak, but it’s not likely that he bothered to put on much more clothing than Tony had). But for all that Loki is human, emphatically human, as he will tell you and tell himself again and again until everyone remembers it, there are still some things decidedly Other about him. Perhaps it’s living so long up in this place, this world of dark snow and blazing sun and the northern lights hung in between them. Perhaps it’s his parentage. Or perhaps it’s just that as the Witches’ Consul, he has trafficked enough with the wonder of this world that it’s left its mark on him, as his mother’s own gift never could. 

Trauley takes to the air again, circling over their head and as high up as she can without harming herself and Loki. Higher, far higher than she can fly, other dark shadows speed across the stars and the lights, too far away to pick out as anything more than blurs of motion overhead. None of them circle down, none of them break from their flight to places that even Loki has never heard of. 

Tony stands with him, and waits until the last witch has passed, and the sky-lightening sunrise which always feels like a pleasant surprise after such potent night has begun to lighten the sky before them.


	16. sentinel and guide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: sentinel AU (i don't know what I'm doing with this, but it was fun to try!)

What figures, what  _fucking_  figures, is that his guide would just be like, the biggest asshole. 

"Where the  _hell_  have you been?” Tony howls, both hands locked onto  Loki’s and his feet kicking out into midair. He can see every detail of the ground below him,  _miles_  below him, but it doesn’t take any kind of freaky-deaky superpowers to imagine with perfect clarity what would have happened if Loki hadn’t poofed into the air above him. He’s not really at the feeling-grateful stage right now though. 

Loki shrugs, Tony’s whole body rising and falling with the motion as though having a human being dangling from his hand doesn’t phase Loki at all. It probably doesn’t. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

"I know you heard Fury’s lecture," Tony shouts over the wind whistling in his ears, sure to give him a headache in a second. "I know you did, because you told me about the powerpoints. Powerpoints with clip art. And text animation. I  _know_ you know what you’re supposed to be doing, so  _why the fuck don’t you do it?”_

Loki hauls Tony up and wraps an arm around Tony’s waist, holding him close. It sucks and it’s shitty, but every part of his body that Loki is touching sends a further wave of calm through all of Tony’s senses, pulling him back further and further from the senseless catatonic brink that he’d just toppled over. Literally, in this case. 

"When I’m flying, you’re supposed to be there with me," Tony says, trying to remember that he’s furious. 

"When you’re flying, you’re supposed to  _tell_ me,” Loki snaps, though one hand is now resting against his neck, thumb making comforting sweeps over his pulse point. “I’m not omnipotent, you know.”

"Stop the fucking presses, did you really just say that? Finally,  _finally_  did you just admit that? Oh my god, I feel faint, I really do, my senses are just overwhelmed by your humility.”

"I  _will_  drop you,” Loki says dryly, but instead seems to decide it would be better to tug them both through some terrible inter-dimensional tunnel (one that Tony suspects would actually kill him if he traveled through it without Loki’s presence to stabilize his Sentinel’s senses) and back to Tony’s apartment. 

Every Sentinel has a guide, that guide is your soulmate, yadda yadda yadda. Tony just wishes his super mystical magical binkie could’ve been someone who, you know, was a little less like Tony. 


	17. 100% movie jotun loki

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more jotun loki! but from vilefangirl: 100% movie verse jotun!loki, no furs or gold doodads or anything

Seems like this planet is mostly caves, but a surprising number of them are  _lying_. Like, they secretly open up into a shaft that sends screaming gusts of wind right on to you just when you think you could be warm and safe. Or they appear to have no floors. Or they have… things living in them. Or they just  _are_  things. 

Tony’s going to have nightmares for the rest of his life, if he ever gets off this rock. 

Which is looking less and less likely, as he drags the suit behind him on a sled that is doing well for something that’s been improvised out of a crashed inter-dimensional vessel (not a Jetsons car, thanks Barton), but not doing that well for an actual sled. It’s getting colder, darker, and whatever shot him down is going to be looking for him, he can only assume. 

Or maybe they knew enough to just let the planet kill him itself. No fuss, no muss. Well, except for the muss formerly known as Tony Stark, smeared over the wall of what he’d thought was a cave. 

Still, hope springs eternal, and when Tony found a gap big enough to get him and the suit through in a towering cliff wall, he edged through it. At the very least, it would be shelter. 

He’s met almost at once with an arm twisting his own up and behind his back, and a knife seemingly made of ice at his throat. 

"Who are you?" Someone says, hot and angry in his ear. "What are you doing here?"

Well, he hasn’t been killed right off. Tony takes that as a good sign. 

"Tony Stark, of Earth—or, Midgard, I come in peace," Tony says. "Please  _don’t_ take me to your leader, I don’t think I wanna meet them after all of this.”

A moment of stunned confusion. Tony’s used to it; he tends to have that effect. 

"Of Midgard?" His new friend says. 

"Yup," Tony says. "On business in Asgard, got turned around, got shot down here. Is this an actual cave? Not something that’s going to turn out to be… you know… alive?"

"Ah," the pressure on his arm is lessened a little, though the knife’s still close enough to his skin that he can feel the chill coming off of it. "You’ve met a Rungnir."

" ‘ _A_  Rungnir?’ There are  _more_ of them? Shit, what kind of a planet is this?”

"Well. Welcome to Jotunheim. I’m going to let you go, but if you are in fact an exceptional actor and have come from Laufey after all, know that I’m only freeing you because the stew will overboil otherwise, but I am ready and able to kill you instantly."

"I believe it," Tony says, as his arm is released and the knife drops out of view (phew). He turns slowly, and sees what appears to be a frost giant. The blue skin, the vaguely greenish ridges adorning his shoulders and sides (some sort of exoskeleton or armor, Tony hasn’t been able to learn yet), red eyes, tracing of raised lines over his bare chest and arms, bald head. Except he can’t a frost giant, since he’s only maybe six inches taller than Tony, and that should be something more like three feet. 

Tony’s thoughts are apparently clear on his face, since his host raises an eyebrow at him. “You really didn’t know I was here.”

"I don’t even know who you are," Tony points out.

His host frowns. He’s not… he’s got a pretty expressive face, for a frost not-so giant. It’s a little disorienting. “My name is Loki,” he says. 

"Glad to meet you, Loki," Tony says. "I think you mentioned stew?"

Loki lets Tony eat at the back of his (mercifully real) cave. Where there’s a cot, some rough furniture, but not much else. It’s  _really_  fucking cold, but Loki, being a frost giant, doesn’t seem to notice. Tony tries to draw him out a little, just because there’s this mini frost giant out here, far from the others, and he apparently expects others to be trying to kill him. From Laufey, who Tony is pretty sure Thor mentioned as being their king. Tony’s a curious guy, he likes a good marvel to unravel. 

Loki resists unraveling. But he relaxes around Tony, slowly. He tries to stay up when Tony finally gets sleepy, to make sure Tony doesn’t hop up to cut his throat in the night, but when he drops off accidentally and wakes up hours later (maybe it’s morning, but it’s impossible to tell in the cave) with his throat miraculously unslit, he looks at Tony with something close to wonder. 

"Well, I need to get going," Tony says. "Got some repairs to make, and need to get off of this frozen rock." He looks around at Loki’s cave, and makes one of his so extremely rare impulse calls. "Wanna come along?"

Loki is even more surprised by this than by waking up alive next to Tony. But after only a moment of narrow-eyed thought, he nods. “Yes. Please.”

He’s not sure how he’s going to explain all this to Thor, but he’s got at least a few weeks to figure out how to signal the guy or repair the Jetson ship himself to come up with a good story. 

And when it turns out that Loki can wave a finger and lift the suit into the air without breaking a sweat, Tony’s pretty glad he made that impulse call. 


	18. frozeniron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frozen, with just a little more frostiron (because canons with sad fabulous ice people and sibling issues are always something I want to get involved in)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is all a little slapdash, and won't make much sense if you haven't seen Frozen.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Tony yelped. He wasn’t really watching the snowy not-quite-a-path in front of them, but Jarvis was notoriously anti-any attempt to steer so there wasn’t much point. "You got engaged to someone you met  _this morning?”_

"Yes, as I just said," Prince Thor said. "But when we asked my brother for his blessing, he said if anything she’s just made me soft in the head, and I—"

"You met her  _this morning._ Today. And asked you to marry her?”

"Jane asked me," Thor said. And actually sighed. "She is a remarkable woman, unlike any I have met before, and—"

"You don’t know anything about her!"

"I know a great deal about her," the Price said, sounding regally offended. "I know she has a great love for her friends. And for buttoned-down shirts and cereal, and that she enjoys the color yellow, and is—"

"Whatever, fine, one bag of electronic components isn’t nearly enough payment to deal with this.  _Please_ get your feet off the control panel,” Tony swatted at the prince’s ankle. “This fucking freak storm is sending the whole thing hurtling towards a meltdown as it is.”

~

"Loki’s been here," Thor said.

"You think he did this?" Tony ran his mittened hand over the elegantly, flawlessly curved handle of the bannister. Tony kept his eyes on the stairs, the ones right in front of him, because if he looked up at that glittering, gorgeous fucking palace ahead of them he might have just broken into tears. 

Thor shrugged. “Who else?”

He started up the stairs in front of Tony. After a moment, Tony followed. This. It just. He’d been working on and with ice for years. Every development and every invention was all for that, almost every waking and thinking moment devoted to his work. Because he loved it. He loved the whole process, he liked coming up with the stuff that made the ice easier to cut, easier to transport, all those good things. But he loved the ice itself, too. Its clarity, its beauty, its constant changeable nature and shifting light and shine. The danger of it, for all its beauty. So yeah, he liked the work. But he liked the ice too. Maybe even more. 

So he couldn’t bring himself to just sit in front of those great translucent doors and wait for Thor to come out again with his brother. 

"This is fucking amazing," he said, setting a shoulder against the doors to push them open and watching the play of purple and green under the floor ahead of him. He followed those flashes of color up, past Thor and to the tall figure standing in front of him. Wearing boots, dark blue trousers and just a light blue tunic, his throat was exposed to the wind, the semi-sheer overtunic just plain laughable in this weather. But pretty. Very pretty. 

He'd seen the face of the King before. On, like, postcards. Stamps. Flags. He didn't see a ton of 500 mark bills but those were the ones with his face on them, he knew that. But none of those had quite captured him. Not that the art had been bad, there was just something... something in the way he held his head, in the compression of his lips, something in his eyes, in how he looked at you. 

Just then, he was looking at Tony like he was insane. 

"Who is this?" He asked Thor. 

"Loki, this is Tony. He has been my guide to find you, and bring you home," Thor said, taking a step towards Loki, extending one pleading hand. "Please, come home?"

"This is beautiful," Tony breathed, wanting to look around at the castle some more, to see how the walls were joined together and how that chandelier was even possible, but for the moment he couldn’t look away from King Loki. "You made all this? Just today?"

"I— Yes," Loki said. He seemed momentarily confused, then lifted his chin and leveled a cold (literally, ha) look at Tony. "Of course I did."

"Wow," Tony said. He couldn’t keep that worshipful note out of his voice at all, and Loki’s Ice Queen act faltered. He might even have blushed. 

"Loki—" Thor said again, and Loki looked back at him sharply. 

"No, Thor," he said. "I can’t help you. I can’t do  _anything_. I’m staying here. Where I’m finally— Just forget about me, go back to Asgard. Where you belong. Where I don't.”

"Loki,  _please_ —”

"No. You and your— and Tony. You need to leave. Now."

Loki stormed upstairs, and Thor followed close behind him, apparently not taking the hint. Tony could, at least this time, so he stayed below. He ran his hands over the walls, the floor, marking how after a little while fractal patterns started to spread out under the ice from where he laid his hands. Some response to the heat of his skin? To any heat, or just body heat? Or just Tony's?

Ice was a living thing, he knew that. Not knowing that was what tended to get people killed messing around in or on it. So if this palace was truly ice, and truly of Loki's making, then how much of its life came directly from him? How much of the king was the life in this ice?

But just after that everything went right to shit, so he couldn’t really explore it any further. 

~

He saw Loki next on the ice. Kneeling behind Thor, and then throwing his arms around his brother’s gleaming ice shoulders, letting out a wild, keening wail. Tony was running to Jane, grabbing her under the arm and helping her up. They both ignored Malekith’s limp form (unconscious probably, though Tony definitely wouldn’t be too upset if the blast of his magic bouncing off Thor’s icy chest had had a more permanent effect), heading towards the brothers as fast as they could. 

Before they got to them, just when Jane’s breathing from behind him was starting to take on the hitching quality of a sob, Thor’s icy blue body lit up bright gold, warmth gushing from him as he gasped back into the land of the living. 

He wrapped his arms around Loki tight and only let go just in time for Jane to launch herself into his arms. 

"True love, huh," Tony said to Loki. Who had stepped back to stand next to Tony, and was trying to pretend he wasn’t wiping his eyes with his fancy sparkly blue sheer jacket thing. 

"I suppose so," Loki laughed. And then snapped his head up to look at Tony. "Love," he said. 

Tony turned red. “Whoa, slow d—”

"The answer was always love," Loki said, turning a blinding grin on Thor. "As sickeningly trite as it sounds, it could just—"

He did something with his arms, a moment of brief concentration, and a long, drawn-out breath. And the winter… ended. It was a miracle. 

The real miracle was how they managed to be luckily standing just over a submerged boat. Kind of a shame, though. Tony would have liked to see how his highness’ fancy getup stood up to a thorough dunking. 

~

Tony stood back from the happy mass of figure skaters in the town square. Thor and Jane were being ridiculously adorable together, but Tony couldn’t find it in himself to be disgusted by it. Still took some adjustment, dealing with crowds, given how he'd lived, but he was feeling decidedly warm even before the king snuck up on him. 

"Not joining in on the fun?" a voice said from behind him. Of course it figured that Loki would vanish during the split second that Tony had stopped staring at him. 

"I’m enjoying the view," Tony said, turning a little to face Loki. 

"So I noticed," Loki said dryly. 

"I told you as soon as I met you," Tony said. Because hey, why not? He’d already almost died like, four times in the past 48 hours, he could take a little risk. "You’re beautiful."

Loki couldn’t fight back the smile. “You were talking about my ice.”

"Okay, that too," Tony said. He raised a hand, resting it on Loki’s shoulder. The overtunic was so thin that he could feel the heat of Loki’s skin as though the shirt wasn’t there at all. And there was heat, more than Tony expected. But Loki sucked in a breath, as though he’d been shocked. Maybe he felt the temperature of Tony’s touch differently. 

Or maybe not, as Loki’s hand wrapped around his elbow and drew him in, the other hand gently coming under Tony’s chin and guiding it up. 

"Show me," Tony breathed. "Show me again."

Loki laughed, a low note of relief, or delight. Snow wrapped around the pair of them, and Tony could see the weaving, trembling patterns of the flakes even when he closed his eyes, even when he leaned in and met Loki’s mouth (warm, warm, very warm) with his. 

**Author's Note:**

> like all this mad insanity? Drop me a prompt at sparklyslug on tumblr!


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